Mehmet Ağar

Turkish politician (born 1951)

Mehmet Kemal Ağar (born on 30 October 1951) is a Turkish former police chief, politician, government minister and leader of the Democratic Party. He was a police officer who rose to General Director of the General Directorate of Security (effectively national police chief), serving from 1993 to 1995, before entering parliament and serving as a government minister in 1996. After being sentenced to several years in prison for criminal activities relating to the Susurluk scandal, he was released on probation in April 2013.

Mehmet Ağar was born on October 30, 1951, at the state president's official residence Çankaya Köşkü in Ankara, where his father was serving as security. During his youth, he toured several places across the country due to his father's position as police chief. He began his high school education in Ankara, continued in Haydarpaşa High School in Istanbul finishing in 1968. He studied finance in the School of Political Science at the University of Ankara on scholarship from the Turkish General Directorate of Security. Graduated in 1972, Mehmet Ağar became a police officer. Mehmet Ağar, married in 1974 Emel Ağar. The couple has a son Tolga and a daughter Yasemin.

He later served as a police inspector in the security force for the state president. In 1976, Ağar was appointed vice district governor in İznik and Selçuk. He later became district governor in Torul and Delice. In 1980, he was assigned assistant director to the counter terrorism section of Istanbul Police. The next year, he was promoted to director of security in Istanbul. At the same time, he became chief of the Counter Guerrilla, a clandestine stay behind anti communist initiative backed by NATO and the United States. Mehmet Ağar served between 1984 and 1988 as the vice police chief of Istanbul for the General Directorate of Security (Turkish National Police). Ağar featured in Mehmet Eymür's controversial 1987 MIT Report that targeted former high ranking civil servants and politicians such as Ağar, Nevzat Ayaz and Ünal Erkan. In 1988, he became police chief of Ankara and in 1990 Istanbul Chief of Police. Following a brief service as governor of the police province of Erzurum between 1992 and 1993, he was appointed in July 1993 director general of the General Directorate of Security in effect the national police chief. Under his leadership the Police Special Forces (Özel Harekat Dairesi) within the General Directorate of Security was run by İbrahim Şahin; Ağar supported its co operation with the Gendarmerie against the Kurdistan Workers' Party PKK in rural areas. He resigned from the police after entering parliament in 1995.

On September 15, 2011, he was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in the Susurluk scandal as the leader of a criminal organization. Following the High Court of Appeals's approval of the ruling made by the criminal court in Ankara, he was interned on April 25, 2012, in a small district prison of type K1 in Yenipazar, Aydın, which was chosen for his personal security reasons. After his sentence was reduced to three years and nine months, he was released on probation in April 2013.